What are the best shark movies of all time?

In the new Aussie thriller Dangerous Animals a serial killer named Tucker (Jai Courtney in perhaps his most entertaining performance ever), feeds his victims to sharks by dangling them in the chum-filled water behind his boat with a crane. Usually while his next victim is forced to watch, and he films it all on a vintage VHS video camera.

“Tell me that's not the greatest show on earth!” he exclaims with manic glee.

We are told that Tucker survived a shark attack as a boy, which goes some way to explaining his extracurricular activities.

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Dangerous Animals, which also stars Hassie Harrison (Yellowstone) as an American surfer attempting to evade Tucker's grasp, is a novel and sadistic spin on the shark attack movie.

It's also an absolute hoot (Tucker sings 'Baby Shark' at one point) and breathes life into the venerable subgenre which has seen other recent high concept interpretations such as the “shark in the catacombs” Netflix effort Under Paris and the “stuck in a cave with a shark ” 2019 movie 47 Metres Down: Uncaged, which followed the “stuck on the ocean floor near sharks” 2017 hit 47 Metres Down.

Unlike those three worthy-but-forgettable movies, Dangerous Animals deserves to go on the list of the best shark movies ever made. There is an endless supply of crummy and cheap shark movies out there, but these are the ones that are actually good. Which is to say, no Sharknado here.

Steven Spielberg's all-time classic (adapted from Peter Benchley's unremarkable 1974 book) is arguably the single most impactful movie ever made. Who hasn't recalled this film's underwater footage of misty nothingness when floating in the ocean and looking down at their legs?

The suggestive genius was famously, and ironically, partially a result of a non-functioning shark model – Spielberg was forced to get more creative without being able to show the titular monster. The result changed cinema forever - it is said to be the first blockbuster – and helped demonise sharks to a degree that is still being felt today. Still a banger though, and while the sequels got a lot of hate, they're generally a cut above most Jaws wannabes.

The outsized success of Jaws inspired many copycats, the most successful being Orca (1977) Piranha (1978) and Alligator (1980), all of which swapped out sharks for other sharp-toothed beasties. It took more than two decades for a true (non-Jaws sequel) successor to come along in the form of this highly ridiculous - yet extremely entertaining - thriller about scientists on a floating platform breeding super intelligent mako sharks in an attempt to cure Alzheimer's disease. It contains a bunch of super gnarly kills, including several that occur when the victim is not actually in the water...

So silly it makes Deep Blue Sea look like a documentary, this forgotten exploitation flick-with-a-budget (it was released as Shark Night 3D, back when 3D was a thing) sees holidaying teens chomped on by sharks placed in a lake by angry rednecks. It doesn't aspire to much, but it very much delivers on the premise.

Another high-concept antecedent to Dangerous Animals (and Under Paris), this scrappy Aussie film sees victims trapped in a flooded supermarket with a great white shark following a tsunami. As if grocery prices weren't enough to contend with.

Arguably the best shark movie since Jaws, this stellar thriller stars Blake Lively as a surfer stranded on a rock offshore at an isolated beach with a great white shark stalking her. Evoked by Dangerous Animals in the girl-versus-shark of it all, this does a great job of continually ratcheting up the tension throughout and Lively makes for a plucky and resourceful protagonist.

Although this long-gestating adaptation of Steve Alten's 1997 book about the reemergence of a giant prehistoric shark had its thunder stolen somewhat by Z-grade pre-ripoffs like Shark Attack 3: Megalodon (2002), it's entertainment value was elevated by the kind of large scale set-pieces a big studio budget affords a movie. Self-aware enough to be consistently fun ('FIN' comes up on screen at the end...), this gets extra points for being shot in New Zealand.